Paper short abstract:

This paper analyse the discourses of a group of associations in France promoting the "tourisme solidaire et equitable" (fair and solidarity tourism) and a local case study. We show how they stage authenticity and solidarity, but although promote a normative solidarity and try to create enchantment.

Paper long abstract:

As other forms of "alternative tourism", they present themselves in contrast to a generic "conventional tourism". One of the critics they address to tourism industry is rather well-know: the "conventional tourism" reduces the other to some simplified traits of the culture, they only show what is beautiful, typical, and do generally not mention the daily life and the real problems the people living in the visited countries are facing, the actions they are taking. They although critic the presentation of some countries of the south only like miserable and poor countries, begging for money, as they can be sometimes marketed in the campaign of donation of riche people.They are then both criticizing and using a touristic and militant view of the world. They lean then on authenticity and needs of development, and the people met are presented on the market as dominated people who gain through tourism a chance to consideration and economic enhancement. They take then actively part to a specific industry of representation.

This generic discourse about the "local people" is not explicitly repeated for each concrete encounter, but it influences the symbolic construction of the other and may contribute to propose a sense of the encounter with the locals to the tourists, and predetermine different roles; We argue then that the reproduction of this ideology is not mechanical.

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